Field of the Invention
The invention relates system and methods for tracking a current amount of material contained on a reel.
Discussion of the Prior Art
Many materials used in construction or the fabrication of products (e.g., wire, cable, tubing, yarn, rope etc.) are sold from the manufacturer on reels. Distributing materials on reels allows users (e.g., installers, contractors, manufacturers, etc.) to easily obtain a specific amount of the material for a job or task and enables easier storage and materials control. A single reel of material is often used for multiple jobs. Many users manually track the usage of material from a reel while completing jobs. Some types of materials include a visual legend that is printed on the material at given intervals. Tracking the usage of material on reels is often necessary for inventory management, billing and project planning. Manually tracking the usage of material from a reel requires a significant amount of time and expense and necessitates a system for recording material use. In addition, manual tracking is subject to significant inaccuracies caused by human error. These inaccuracies contribute to waste and increase project cost.
A variety of material tracking systems have been previously developed for materials that are distributed from a reel. Some are generally of the type that attaches directly to the material, independent of the reel and tracks the movement of the line as it feeds from its container. Taymer International, Inc. (Markham, Ontario, CA) is one example of a distributor of measuring devices that are directly attached to the material being distributed. These devices are typically only used in the manufacture of cable because they use a system of complex rollers to measure the material as it is spooled out, which makes this solution expensive and prone to potential errors. This technical approach also requires recalibration of the devices for different material diameter.
Other material tracking systems are used in reel to reel audio tape monitoring, as exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 5,808,824 to Kaniwa, et al. These systems combine reel to reel tape speed measurements with winding radius calculations to control tape feed through a complex series of measuring devices that are integrated with the machine that reads the tape. The system requires complex sensors on both reels along with calculations that feed back into the controlling device and require complex manufacturing and assembly. They are permanent components of the machinery and are not used to track inventory. In this system, the device uses a ratio between the tension of the tape and the torque output of the reel motors to calculate the radius of an empty take-up spool and then ultimately by tracking the tape fed calculations may be made to ultimately determine the radius of the working radius of the supply spool and the length of the fed tape.
Measurement of wire bonding loops is done in semiconductor fabrication as electronic wire is attached to various components as exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 8,301,841 to Qin. These systems simply calibrate wire payout based on the timing of a payout mechanism and are not used to measure remaining length. They do not measure rotational variables from a spool, reel or other wire container.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,921,044 to Graber et al shows a device for storing and detecting the end of a wire as it is unspooled. The device uses the few wraps of wire closest to the drum to block the magnetic lines of flux from reaching the magnetic sensor mounted outside of the spool. As the last few wraps of wire no longer block the magnetic flux the sensor will momentarily pick up that flux once per rotation. If the sensor is hooked to an output source (e.g. Light, siren etc.) the output source will energize once per rotation informing the user that the wire is about to run out. Among other potential shortcomings, this device does not provide any advanced warning that the wire will be running out, let alone, provide any inventory management capabilities.
In the fishing gear industry, attempts have been made to develop sensor-based systems to track the amount of fishing line let out from a fishing reel. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,790,492 to Takashi provides for magnet-based sensor system for measuring and providing the length of fishing line played out or reeled in. This unitary system teaches one-to-one correspondence between sensor sub-system, processor, and display. As such, among other potential shortcomings, the approach disclosed by the '492 Takashi patent is too expensive for use in simultaneously tracking multiple reels of material.